BLM Freezes Solar Projects

This one is a head-scratcher. The Bureau of Land Management has put a three-year moratorium on solar power projects on the lands it manages, citing the need to study their environmental impacts. These lands are important ones for the solar industry. The Times reports:

Much of the 119 million surface acres of federally administered land in the West is ideal for solar energy, particularly in Arizona, Nevada and Southern California, where sunlight drenches vast, flat desert tracts.

On the one hand, it seems like a good move. Too often, we rush into the next great thing without a comprehensive analysis of what that thing’s larger effects will be. (To take the easiest example, think ethanol.) The natural world is delicate and complicated beyond our understanding, so, in general, proceeding with caution is a good idea.

On the other hand, the government rarely proceeds with caution when it comes to public lands. In the last couple years, the Bush administration has proposed allowing commerce, roads, off-road vehicles, and concealed weapons on public lands, and has eagerlyembraced drilling for oil and natural gas. If fossil fuels warrant endangering these lands, then surely solar power does, too.

Is the Bush administration really so set against decreasing our dependence on fossil fuels that it would fabricate concern for the environment in order to block alternative energy projects? It would appear so.